I took off from work early today. The work week was pretty much a waste. I only did a half day Wednesday because I had an appointment downtown (which I’ll tell you about later), and I missed several hours yesterday because of an appointment in Pearland. So I figured why should Friday be a full [...]

Cory Doctorow has discovered Scottsboro’s unclaimed baggage store. I went there once, ages ago with Wendy and her parents. New twist: they now have a web site with online store. Trivial fact you maybe didn’t want to know: Scottsboro is where Philip K Dick’s robotic head may have ended up after getting left on an [...]

Discovery is in its 3-G throttling phase now as they approach main-engine cutoff. It was a beautiful launch and a great way to celebrate Independence Day.
Update: we just saw the ET seperation. Now we wait while the engineers analyze the data and film to determine whether the orbiter is in good shape.

Today’s launch window for STS-121 and Space Shuttle Discovery is from 1:32 PM to 1:42 PM CDT.
The launch attempt today was nearly canceled when a crack was found in the External Tank’s (ET) insulating foam. The crack is only five inches long by an eighth of an inch deep, but these days we take nothing [...]

After yesterday’s scrub, the mission management team decided to stand down for 48 hours. They will try again tomorrow.

The Sci-Fi channel is having a 3-day Twilight Zone marathon today through Tuesday. One year during one of their TZ marathons, I taped a bunch of my favorite episodes and copied them to DVD. I won’t be doing that this year, just watching. I love the Twilight Zone; it will be hard to keep from [...]

Today’s launch window for STS-121 and Space Shuttle Discovery is from 2:21 PM to 2:31 PM CDT.

Today’s launch window for STS-121 and Space Shuttle Discovery is from 2:43 PM to 2:53 PM CDT.